While I found things to disagree with from both Republican candidates, I was most disappointed in Corbett’s noncommittal to right-to-work and elimination of prevailing wage. Corbett’s long-form answers reflect what is probably an accurate political reality — that such measures are unlikely to see the governor’s desk — but some firmer support might have been nice.

WASHINGTON – Reversing a ban on oil drilling off most U.S. shores, President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced an expansive new policy that could put oil and natural gas platforms in waters along the southern Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska. Speaking at Andrews air base outside Washington, Obama said, “This is not a decision that I’ve made lightly.”

He addressed the expected outcry from disappointed environmentalists by saying he had studied the issue for more than a year and concluded it was the right call given the nation’s voracious thirst for energy and the need to produce jobs and keep American businesses competitive.LINK

The Obama administration has officially, completely and forever entered the realm of the perverse. For YEARS the environmental whack-o left, the democrat party and the anointed one himself have expounded on the evils of offshore oil drilling. Until now. Obama has had a conversion on the road to Damascus…or should I say TEXAS!

Remember what we were told folks: BIG OIL=BAD. The planet = good. Anything that puts more oil into our precious environment is evil. Yet here we are getting ready to DRILL in the OCEAN of all things. It’s surreal that people will believe ANYTHING the democrat party, the left or Obama has to say any more.

When George Bush, a Texan with real oil industry experience wants to drill, it’s a republican scheme to ruin the planet. When Sarah Palin, a Governor from a state that deals with oil companies and the environment all the time wants to drill, she’s just a dumb broad. When Dick Cheney the brilliant ex-head of a multi-national corporation with extensive experience in the industry says drill the left only wants to know who he had lunch with at the White House. They are all evil remember?

Yet when Obama, a skinny senator, from a landlocked state whose only know experience before the White House is ladling soup in a homeless shelter says drill, it’s time to set up the rig. You have got to be kidding. Wonder how Maddow and Olberman will spin this one???

The survey has to do with the future direction of my business – that’s the simplest explanation. The questions deal with freedom in its various forms. I’m not collecting any kind of contact information, so don’t worry about getting slammed with a million e-mails. I am only seeking your answers.

Joe Hoeffel, speaking at a Capitol briefing, questions Attorney General Tom Corbett’s motives for joining the constitutional challenge against Obamacare and disparages a whole movement while he’s at it. From Scott Detrow’s State House Sound Bites:

He [Corbett] has always struck me as a moderate Republican and I think he’s desperately afraid of not satisfying the teabagging tea partiers and looks at Sam Rohrer, who is certainly very sincere in his conservative views and sees a threat

So basically, on the off chance that Hoeffel makes it to the Governor’s mansion, Pennsylvania conservatives can expect more of the marginalization and disparagement that the new democrat party has gleefully heaped upon a nationwide movement that dares exercise their first amendment rights. The new democratic party that defines that high holy ideal of “bipartisanship” that was so important when they were out of power simply as “Shut up. We Won.” And of course, Joe Hoeffel is a big proponent of “bipartisanship:” a bipartisanship that can be defined as trading turning a blind eye to the cronyism of an entrenched politician in exchange for usurping the will of the voters to enact his liberal agenda for a county that voted overwhelmingly for a Republican.

Even if you are not a member of an “official” Tea party movement, polling indicates that a little more than half of the population is in agreement with the Tea Party as far as Obamacare goes.

I’m not sure why liberals have embraced a derogatory term for a homosexual sex act as a way of attempting to disparage, discredit and puerilely make fun of a group of people who believe that our country is losing it’s way. Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that they intend it as a smear.

It’s important to remember that while Tom Corbett is attacking a law and policy that many Pennsylvanians believe is harmful to our freedom, Joe Hoeffel is using an ugly slur to attack the character of the individual voters who support this action.

Gov. Ed Rendell expects the feds to say something about the proposed Interstate 80 tolls in about two weeks, but he’s not sure if it will be a green light, a red light or just a request for more information.

He said he had a “great meeting” recently with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in Washington, where a team of Pennsylvania transportation officials and lawyers “made a great presentation” on why Pennsylvania needs the additional revenue that tolling I-80 would bring.

Mr. Rendell said he was “optimistic” that the tolling authority would be granted, although obviously nothing is for sure.

“We should hear something in the next two weeks,” he said. “But there was no indication from the secretary if it would be a yes, a no or a ‘we need more information’.”

In addition to the bad news that young adults will be shouldering a significant portion of Obamacare costs through higher enforced enrollment and premiums, Lamar Alexander via Robert Costa on The Corner points out this little gem on college loan funding tucked into the 2,700 page bill:

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), the U.S. secretary of education from 1991 to 1993, tells National Review Online that President Obama’s revamping of the federal student-loan program is “truly brazen” and the “most underreported big-Washington takeover in history.”

“As Americans find out what it really does, they’ll be really unhappy,” Alexander predicts. “The first really unhappy people will be the 19 million students who, after July 1, will have no choice but to go to federal call centers to get their student loans. They’ll become even unhappier when they find out that the government is charging 2.8 percent to borrow the money and 6.8 percent to lend it to the students, and spending the difference on the new health-care bill and other programs. In other words, the government will be overcharging 19 million students.” The overcharge is “significant,” Alexander adds, because “on a $25,000 student loan, which is an average loan, the amount the government will overcharge will average between $1,700 and $1,800.”

“Up to now, 15 out of 19 million student loans were private loans, backed by the government,” Alexander says. “Now we’re going to borrow half-a-trillion from China to pay for billions in new loans. Not only will this add to the debt, but in the middle of a recession, this will throw 31,000 Americans working at community banks and non-profit lenders out of work.”

This “Soviet-style takeover,” as Alexander calls it, will fundamentally change not only the American post secondary education system, which is the best in the world because of competition, but it will “change the kind of country we live in.”

Under the health care overhaul, young adults who buy their own insurance will carry a heavier burden of the medical costs of older Americans – a shift expected to raise insurance premiums for young people when the plan takes full effect.

Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That’s when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for the Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.

The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years.

(…)

The law relies on Higdon and other young adults to shoulder more of the financial load in new health insurance risk pools. So under the new system, Higdon could expect to pay $300 to $500 a year more. Depending on his income, he might also qualify for tax credits.

At issue is the insurance industry’s practice of charging more for older customers, who are the costliest to insure. The new law restricts how much insurers can raise premium costs based on age alone.

Insurers typically charge six or seven times as much to older customers as to younger ones in states with no restrictions. The new law limits the ratio to 3-1, meaning a 50-year-old could be charged only three times as much as a 20-year-old.

The rest will be shouldered by young people in the form of higher premiums.

Hope and Change! Wait until you find out what else is in it. You are gonna LOVE this law!